Written piece
Frayed
Monique Edwards
Trinidad and Tobago
About this piece
This submission explores the gradual cultural assimilation of a Caribbean household across passing generations. It traces how a home once vibrant with ancestral heritage and culture is cleared out to adopt the sleek, minimalist aesthetic dominant in modern American homes.
Grandma’s house was a lively one,
dipped in vivid colours, loud patterns and decor.
A crafty living loom, she was never void of colour,
vibrant threads of culture spun from her hands.
But inheritance is a sharp pair of shears,
the relatives arrived to snip away the years.
They cleared out the warmth to make way for anew,
bleaching the color from every room.
Only her quilt survived the declutter,
it was passed around for awhile.
A heavy, stitched shield against the night’s bite,
a comfort to soothe a baby's relentless cry.
But generations shift like a changing tide,
the children grew up, and their taste 'refined'.
The old, heavy stitches felt clumsy and mismatched.
they traded her stitches for store-bought design,
for factory-made blankets with perfect, straight lines.
The quilt was torn up, spliced beyond repair,
used to wipe down cupboards, cobwebs and spills.
Her culture, her craft, her memory frayed.